


Thermal Cycle

by Hermit9



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Cuddling, D/s undertones, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Oral Sex, Past Rape/Non-con, Praise Kink, Sense Memory, Steve wants to make them better, Temperature Play, controlled exhibitionism, this fic contains mentions of goats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 09:33:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17598746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9
Summary: Steve was looking forward to this whole getaway a whole lot more than Bucky was. Silent retreats and quiet comforts weren't Bucky's idea of a fun day off. But he was open to changing his mind.





	Thermal Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the amazing [DeejayMil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil) and [FestiveFerret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret)

The slow constant tick of the metal heater filled the room. Bucky had tried to match his breathing to it, but it was just a hair too slow and it only made him feel like he was suffocating. The heater clicked off and the metal whined softly as it contracted in the absence of the flame. That sound was fainter, and Bucky tried desperately to find something else to focus on. He could hear noises from the kitchen, the metallic clangs muffled by walls and distance, but even straining, he couldn’t hear any conversation, no footsteps in the hall outside of the sauna. 

Sweat ran down his spine. Some ran down the bridge of his nose and around the junction of the arm. Bucky flexed the fingers of the metal arm with a dejected sigh. It had been his greatest leverage against this entire plan for the longest time until someone got Shuri on the phone and she had technobabbled an explanation about vibranium and heat sinks. She sounded a bit insulted, all things considered. And he had to admit that there was no discomfort along his ribs or under his shoulder where the prosthetic meshed with the mangled flesh. He had to be careful about touching the back of his hand to his thigh, but he’d had worse. 

The heater started up again. Bucky decided he hated it, but a bit less than he hated the silence. The silence left too much room for the voices in his head to speak up. Not all of them were his own. He wished for an interruption, the apparition of some sort of a threat on this luxurious contraption that had once been a boat. It still floated on the water, but it was so firmly enmeshed with the urban landscape that it was a trapped thing now, that only remembered the shape of freedom. Steve had probably picked it for other reasons, like small, decently defendable rooms and the ability to throw money at it in order to rent the entire place quietly enough to avoid the tabloids. The water broke just below the sauna’s window like ripples of long ago actions.

Stop. 

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. 

Bucky let the thoughts go, instead of digging at them like a scab. This was supposed to be relaxing and healthy. Stewing, quite literally, was neither. It took three breaths to calm the racing of his mind. He still felt exposed and vulnerable, sitting on the cedar planks in nothing more than shorts and a towel. The one thing he’d put his foot down about was the absence of steam. No amount of aromatherapy could make the steam baths look like anything other than the liquid nitrogen fumes of the cryo chambers closing around him. 

A knock on the door made him jump and turn, wrapping the towel around his hand as a weapon. When he looked up from his crouch, Steve was standing on the other side of the door, smiling. 

“It’s time,” he said softly. Steve knew he didn’t need to shout. Zola had made sure The Soldier would always hear him (as he had heard his handlers. And each of their orders.). Bucky nodded and pushed open the door. Steve stepped aside to let him out. The air was cooler, and Bucky shivered. He looked at the second door, licking his lips. He could feel the tension building back up his spine, locking loose muscles into place. 

“I’m really not sure about this part,” he said, outloud because only Steve was here to listen.

“You’ll be fine. Come on.”

The second door was made of double paned glass and steel and led to an open air deck of corrugated metal. A fine dusting of snow covered it, but Bucky's overheated skin didn’t register the bite of it. Steve led him further away from the awning. 

“Trust me?” he asked.

 _Yes. No. I’m scared. Would you let me back out now? Am I allow—_ “‘Til the end of the line,” he answered. 

Steve nodded and pulled on the triangular lever. 

The water hit. It was cold, so cold and never-ending, a stream from overhead that cut him from the world and stole all the warmth he’d soaked up. His heart rate spiked, even as he tried to keep his breathing under control. The longer he could stop from hyperventilating, the less bad the mock drowning would go. Usually. He closed his eyes and concentrated on not swallowing or inhaling anything from the deluge. 

“Stay with me.” The voice was close, closer than handlers got during training. The handlers always stayed out of arm's reach, with guns and cattle prods in case of a defective reaction. This one was close; he could feel his breath on his ear, the warmth of his chest against his. Not training then, but a parade, a weapon brought to kneel on display. 

But the order had been soft, a plea or a demand, not something barked to a dog. Bucky squeezed his fists until he felt the pain in his flesh hand, heard the servo-motors whine in the other. It wasn’t real, couldn’t be real. It was the drugs or the hallucinations he invented in the dark.

“ _Stay_ with me.” Same voice, still as close and as soft. He knew that voice. 

Steve. 

Bucky opened his eyes, and Steve was standing less than a breath away, looking at him with a slightly worried scowl on his brow. It made the blue of his eyes darker, like a cloud over the sun.

Bucky was shivering so hard his teeth would have chattered if his jaw hadn't been clenched hard enough to hurt. Steve was rubbing him dry with a towel, and Bucky became aware of the one in his hands, sodden and ripped. 

“The hard part’s over,” Steve was saying softly. “Come on, sit down now.” He slowly moved them inside, using his own enhanced physicality to keep Bucky grounded, swaddled between the terry cloth and the soaked cotton of his shirt.

A giggle wormed its way up Bucky’s chest, bouncing across his ribs and spilling out of his mouth in little breathless hiccups. The cold shower apparently hadn’t spared Steve all that much: he could feel the hard nubs of his nipples pressing against him. 

“That’s it, come on, sit down now.” Steve said, still soft, as he manhandled Bucky with gentle pushes. Nothing that couldn't be fought against but infused with steady intent.

He could only nod and agree, still giggling. Steve backed him to one of the hammock chairs, a suspended combination of strong nautical ropes and bended wood. He hopped up and let Steve fuss with the pillows, placing one at the back of his neck and one under the curve of his back. 

The contraption groaned under his weight, but it held. He felt weightless with euphoria bubbling inside of his skin. He knew it was all biochemistry, receding adrenaline versus a rising tide of endorphins. But he was floating inside of his skin, floating in the quiet room, and Steve was watching over him as he swayed.

Nothing hurt.

Steve hummed a please little sound and turning his head to see him was a hardship that Bucky felt he deserved a medal for overcoming. Steve was smiling, looking at him with pride, as if he was one of his canvases after a sleepless night. There was a sparkle in his eye, now, and if they hadn’t been the only patrons, Bucky would have worried about being able to regrow the bones in his limbs fast enough to stop a fight. Not that _Captain America_ had needed anyone to step into his fights for years. But it was the thought that counted. 

“Gonna sketch me like one of your French girls, Stevie?” 

The long nights of movie watching Sam had roped him into paid off as Steve laughed, head thrown back in pure delight. “Not today, “ he said when he caught his breath. “Would you pose for me another time? Let me put you in something made out of silk and draw you in the sun somewhere?” The spark was back in his eye, but darker, and his voice had dropped a degree.

“I could do that,” said Bucky. It wasn’t something he hadn’t done before. There were very little things in the realm of what people considered intimate that he hadn’t experienced. He chased reflections of himself in the broken jigsaw of his memories, images caught on door and others’ eyewear and floors, elsewhere, covered in epoxy for ease of cleaning. “Just… Nothing on my throat. And no leashes.” He touched his fingers under his adam’s apple, where the ghost of a choker dug at the skin. There was nothing there.

“Of course,” answered Steve. His voice was sad in the particular way he had of being furious. Like he was affronted that he wouldn’t get to punch someone personally. Or when he spoke of Peggy.

Bucky had nothing more to say. He flexed a leg to make the hammock swing a bit more and closed his eyes. The pattern on the ceiling was making him dizzy.

Which was why, of course, he didn’t hear Steve move. One would think he’d gotten used to Steve’s new size in the years since he waltzed into a Hydra base to save him wearing a stage costume. The serum-body had been Steve’s for the main part of a century. But, somehow, when his guard was down or he was almost delirious with needing to sleep, Bucky still expected the slight wheeze to Steve’s lungs, or the too loud footfall because of his hearing issue.

“I’m going to touch your head,” Steve whispered, because he was always careful around the skittish edges of Bucky’s pain-and-horror warped mind. 

He waited for a few arcs before humming his consent. Only then did Steve dig his fingers into his hair in slow movements, pulling the strands and massaging the scalp. It sent shivers down Bucky’s spine, almost equally from the touch as from the fact that he had waited. Would have waited longer, if Bucky had wanted him to. The sliver of power was like Stark’s good booze: inebriating and deceptively smooth. 

Steve’s hands were strong and soft. How was his skin so soft after the war and everything else? He was moving down from Bucky’s neck and along his right arm. Not massaging, but rubbing firmly, spreading a liquid along the skin. Something soft and woodsy that sunk in almost immediately. 

“I thought we weren’t allowed to have oils on us out in the bath areas,” Bucky said, taking a deep breath and letting go of the rope he had been holding so Steve could manipulate his hand and spread the oil through his fingers, gentle and methodical.

“We’re not. You’ve read the brochure?”

He had read the brochure. And the disclaimer clients usually had to sign. He’d studied the schematics, both the public ones and the real ones he wasn’t supposed to be able to get, until he’d been confident in his ability to navigate the doors and hidden hallways blindfolded and deafened. He knew where the exits were and how long it would take for him to reach them, to disappear. There were buildings with good sightlines that made him uncomfortable, but he couldn’t do anything about it without making Steve sad or disquiet. So Bucky didn’t say anything about any of it, opting for the safer route of humour, as Steve started trailing his fingers back up to his shoulder. 

“How many of the rules are you intending to break?” 

“Oh, all of them, probably.” 

“It’s good to have goals.” Bucky chuckled. Everyone thought of Steve as _Cap_. Boy Scout, made out of patriotism and moral superiority. But Steve, at his core, was a little shit. Bucky tilted so Steve could have better access to his hurt shoulder, rubbing the oil into the scar tissue there and making the semi-permanent itch subside. “You know the hardware doesn’t need a massage, yeah?”

“I checked with Shuri,” Steve answered, running down his hands over the vibranium as easily as he had over the matching flesh. “Won’t hurt you, good for the workings.” He bent down to whisper the last bit into Bucky’s ear, breath warm against his skin. “Every part of you is beautiful.” 

It was a lie, had to be. He was broken in all the ways that mattered and hundreds that were too trivial to note. He swallowed over his suddenly hitching breath, trying to get his tongue and lips to form the words to tell Steve how wrong he was. 

The problem was that Steve was still talking. 

“I’ve always looked up to you, you know? Strong, smart, charming. Always had my six.” His hands hadn’t stopped moving either. Thumbs pressing up the spine at the back of Bucky’s neck, then fingertips trailing lightly over his throat. The touch there light and careful, never covering with the whole palm or squeezing, nothing that could be construed as a chokehold. “I thought I lost you in Azzano. I got a little crazy, you know? Couldn’t let you go.”

He chased the blush that somehow, somehow was spreading down Bucky’s chest, like his body didn’t know what to do with all the thoughts he couldn’t express and the emotions they carried like burdens. So it tried action; it made the skin red and burning in a fresh flush of blood. Goosebumps chased the oil and the warmth of Steve. “And then you came back. And you kept coming back. And I keep thinking I’m the luckiest man on this crazy planet.” 

“Steve—” Bucky swallowed and tried again. “I’m not—” _Worthy. Enough. Something you should want._ “The things I did. You don’t...”

“I know. I’ve read the files, every last word of every report.” He curled his fingers, making the nails dig at the skin as he pulled back up, avoiding the too sensitive nipples but leaving vanishing trails in their wake. He laid one hand over Bucky’s heart, heavy as an anchor as he moved around and knelt before him, bringing their eyes to the same level. “I’ve studied the schematics of every operation they made you do. And none of that changes a single word of what I’m telling you.” 

Bucky was sure his heart was about to beat right out of his chest and into Steve’s hands where it had always belonged in the first place. Steve was looking at him, really looking, seeing him like no one else dared to. And there wasn’t any guile in the blue of his eyes. 

Fuck. 

“I gave up. Gave in.” _There’s nothing in me that they haven’t already taken._

“You survived.” Steve leaned forward, pulling at the ropes to keep his balance on the tip of his toes, braced against the slippery residual wetness on the floor. Somehow the chair held. “And that fills me with awe.” He placed a kiss, almost chaste, on Bucky’s forehead, under each of his eyes, and a barely there press on his lips. Almost as if he was signing him with the cross. As Steve moved, Bucky pulled the dots back together, from the eternity-bleached past of their youth. Steve was anointing him. 

“You’re a sap. You know that?” 

He had expected a sassy answer, but Steve winked instead. He poured more of the oil over his hands and resumed his task in slow movements over Bucky’s ribs and stomach to avoid tickling. He’d fallen silent, thank God, but he was smirking as he hooked his fingers around the waistband of Bucky’s swimming shorts. He pushed some of the oil into the skin, where the fabric had left behind an angry line. And then he took his hands away. The utter traitor. 

The muffled sound of lounge pants-covered thighs hitting the floor told Bucky where Steve had gone: sitting cross-legged like this was a nothing more than the meditation Natasha had tried to make them do. Steve lifted one of Bucky’s feet and ran his thumbs firmly under the arc and along the outside edge. He dug into the heel with what felt like most of his considerable grip strength.

“Oh god, I might never want you to stop doing that,” Bucky sighed happily.

“I’m pretty sure you’d eventually find better uses for my hands.” Steve lowered the foot he had been working on and took up the second one. “Or want to eat, at some point.”

“There’s people on this boat. They can bring the food.”

“And feed you grapes like a king?”

“Grapes. Those granola cluster chocolate things. Just not the energy balls made out of dates and a false sense of righteousness Sam keeps eating. Those are foul.” 

“They’re good for you.” 

“Did I fucking stutter, Rogers?”

No answer came so Bucky took a deep breath and and focused on releasing tension on the exhale, settling in. Steve kept working on his feet for a while, then moved on to ankles, making them turn in gentle circles. He grunted a bit as he moved up to the calves, and Bucky chuckled and flexed the muscles there a few times before relenting.There was no benefit to himself in making things hard for Steve. He giggled at this own joke. 

Clever fingers danged up his thighs, digging and tracing where the straps of his holsters would go if he was properly geared-up, followed by the sudden harshness of Steve’s stubble as he rubbed his cheeks like a cat over the thinner skin there.

“Oh, _fuck_ yes,” Bucky breathed, folding his good arm behind his head and grabbing at the pillow there. He let his legs splay as far as they could, for the first time annoyed by the constraint of the faux-scandinavian bent wood. It wasn’t willow or birch, but his focus was slipping and he couldn’t tell properly. Steve was, somehow, arcing him up enough to slide down the increasingly confining spandex shorts. That program he could get on board with. 

“Language,” said Steve, jokingly as he lifted his head to wink at Bucky.

“Your team really falls for that?”

He raised a shoulder in a half shrug, pulling at the fabric until it hung, abandoned, on one of Bucky’s ankles. “Cut the kids some slack. I sell the apple pie, squeaky-clean image like a pro.”

“I have so many stories I could—” He stuttered over the words, inhaling sharply and letting it out in a sound that could have been " _Stevie_ ". Or the sound of his brain suddenly liquifying. 

Steve was wearing lip balm. Thicker than the oil he’d been using and slightly tacky. It left behind a ghost impression of lips as Steve kissed his way up Bucky’s dick. He was taking his time, exploring, light fingertips and no tongue. His stubble was a contrast, scratchy but not enough on its own: just a tease of texture. Steve was breathing deeply, in some yoga pattern he’d picked up from Bruce. Exhaled as he worked up to Bucky’s hip bones. Held as he hovered and scratched his way across. Inhaled as he dove down to the very base of Bucky’s cock, as if he was hunting for the purest pools of musk and skin scent, nosing an almost touch over the crepe skin of his balls. 

Bucky whined.

Wide wet heat rewarded him for it, as Steve licked a broad stripe up his dick, like he was cleaning the side of an ice cream cone in summer. He curled his tongue to tease the underside of the head before plopping down to swallow as much of Bucky as he could. He wrapped a hand around whatever his lips wasn’t covering, palm gliding up to cup Bucky’s balls as he did. 

The touch was too loose and too soft, even as Steve started to bop his head up and down, doing some complex swirl thing with his tongue. Bucky tried to tilt his hips into it and found that the set-up was working against him. Attempts at thrusting made the hammock swing backward, away from the wet bliss of Steve’s mouth. Almost far enough to slip all the way out, until Steve sealed his lips firmly against the head of Bucky’s cock and flexed his fingers a bit closer. The saliva made the motion slick and smooth. On the way back, Steve swallowed down as far as he could. Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to keep moving or not: everything felt good and not enough. 

His hand found its way down and cupped the back of Steve’s head. It felt something like coming home. Bucky wasn’t pressing down, just holding on for the ride. He ran locks of hair through his fingers, getting longer than regulation would dictate and different layers of tickling against his thighs and stomach. There was a divot at the back of Steve’s head, about the size of a fingertip. A chip of bone had broken there in the war, from shrapnel or an explosion, somewhen in the blur of the Howlies’ missions. The serum had made sure that it healed, thickening the bone plate as it knitted back together and leaving no scar behind on the skin. The bones remembered. Bucky wondered if S.H.I.E.L.D. had known what they’d been looking at on the x-rays they’d no doubt taken of Steve, of the stories behind the markers of bone density across his body, the encapsulated proofs of the stupid, idiotic stunts he’d pulled for a world that didn’t deserve him.

“You’r dwifting away,” mumbled Steve around his cock, sending ripples through Bucky, sizzling up his spine and back down to join the simmering arousal in his gut.

“I know. Can't help it,” he answered. He didn’t bother raising his voice much above a whisper. “Keep me here?”

Steve hummed, sending more vibrations from his throat. He snaked an arm around Bucky’s waist, hand hooking into the ropes there, pulling him close and holding him in place. It wasn't what either of them had meant; it served well as a stopgap measure.

Apparently done with the teasing, Steve got into a rhythm, a complex dance between his hand, lips, tongue, and the barely there edge of teeth. Bucky hung on for the ride, metal fingers splayed against Steve’s skull and digging into the spots he was the last man alive to know about. The floating feeling came back, until he felt drunk off his face on endorphins. He didn't try to chase the high. There was no need to come as fast as he could while things were good, no need to stave it off in fear of punishment for a malfunction. Steve always made sure he could go at his own speed.

Bucky pulled his own hair, turning his face into his shoulder so his fingers could graze along the side of his neck as well, matching Steve’s rhythm. It sent shivers down the skin, raising goosebumps in the perfectly climate controlled air. The contrast with the heat around his cock and the firm hold around his waist building up, pooling together. Waves on the shore as the wind picks up, not a flood but enough to drown out the past. 

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop...” He might have kept talking, might have broken into oracle visions and prophetic truths and not known it. Whatever he had said worked, and Steve held right on that perfect line, until Bucky reached the crest of the waves and came stumbling down in little gasps. He licked the bitten edge of his lip, soothing the sting away. 

Steve pulled back before Bucky had to ask him, before the oversensitivity set in, leaving him buzzed and happy and just right. 

“You’re amazing at that, you know?” 

“I know. It just doesn’t make the list of skills on my resume.” 

“Super soldier, tactician, fearless leader, _amazing_ cocksucker. I don’t know. It has nice ring to it.” Bucky pulled himself up so he could take better look at Steve. Steve, who for all of his careful planning and his tempered steel willpower, was clearly not as unaffected as he’d been pretending to be. He was sitting on the floor cross legged, the thin cotton of his pants highlighting more than they hid, soaked from the cold shower. The undeniable, twitchy, line of his hard cock combined with flushed cheeks and eyes so lust blown they were just shy of indigo made an amazing combo. “Want me to help with that?” 

“No. I’m good. Gotta save something for rounds two and three.” He tilted his head towards the blackboard on the wall, where artsy liquid chalk had dried down in an illusion of impermanence. _‘For best results, repeat three times’_ it read. 

“Really?” There was no bite in the question, but he tried to make himself looks distressed. Which was a lot harder than usual with the happy afterglow still coursing through his veins. Steve just smiled in answer, looking up at him like a kid looking at some amazing toy display. “Of course you’re serious.” He paused then gestured for Steve to shuffle back as he hopped out of the hammock. He bent to retrieve his underwear and whispered next to Steve’s ear “Can I not be alone in the heat this time?”

He was rewarded by a quick gulp and nod. Bucky smirked. Steve wasn’t the only one who could have plans. Later, he would wonder if whatever rental agreement the spa had bargained for covered gouges in the cedar planks that matched Steve’s fingers as he flailed around for something to grab onto, head thrown back with sweat coursing down his throat and chest. Like some glistening carving being polished, something a museum would label in brass and name “Essence of Ecstasy”. Bucky could hold his breath for a long time, pinning Steve’s hips down and swallowing around him relentlessly. No one said he had to play fair. 

“Could you do it?” Bucky asked, lips moving against the back of Steve’s neck. They’d crashed into the large beanbags — in a tangle of limbs and muscle mass — after another shared cold shower. Neither of them was looking for more sex, just skin on skin contact and closeness.

“Do what?”

“Fuck off somewhere like Clint. Build a farm, maybe raise some goats.”

“You miss your farmhand days from Wakanda?”

“Sometimes. But I was thinking Ozark mountains, or maybe Ireland. You and me, the greenery and the sky.”

“And the goats.”

“Goats are cute. Easy to care for.”

Steve turned around so he could face him, trying to decide if he was being serious. “I’d get restless. But if that’s something you wanted, I would come and visit. As often as you’d let me.”

“Who says I’d let you leave?” Bucky closed the distance between them, leaning his forehead against Steve’s. “It’s just a dream. Things get too much sometimes.”

“I like it. Just. Not now.”

“Ok.” 

There was always tomorrow. 


End file.
